


may we meet again

by a_simple_space_nerd



Category: The 100
Genre: Bellarke, CLARKE IS HER OWN HERO, Gen, Post S2, Pre-s3, but only at the end, clarke just needs some time, clarke saves herself, fix-it fic? kind of, let my daughter rest 2k16, not strictly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_simple_space_nerd/pseuds/a_simple_space_nerd
Summary: She kisses his cheek and blinks back tears because she knows that she's making the right decision. Bellamy must know it too, because his voice wobbles and cracks but he doesn't stop her. "May we meet again," she says, and it's a promise, not a hope. She wonders if Bellamy knows this, and if his murmured response is anything to go by, he does.She walks away from Camp Jaha and doesn't look back for hours.(A three-part story about what could have happened post season 2.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **@ 100 writers: Let Her Rest™ ******

Clarke watched the trees. Bellamy, who walked beside her, watched their people as they trekked back to Camp Jaha, but Clarke watched the trees.

She couldn't face her people, whom she had sacrificed so much for, who all hugged her and looked to her for instruction after she walked into the harvest chamber.

Her people, who she had committed genocide for.

  


Octavia's words rang in her mind, screaming _everyone is always counting on you,  not good enough,_ and Raven chimed in with a biting _you don't get to give up, Clarke!_ Lexa rang in with _where will you go?_ And Clarke still replied _I don't know,_ because she didn't.

How could one rebuild a life when it had been destroyed? The foundations behind Clarke's actions had crumbled and fallen. _(Maybe there are no good guys.)_

  


So she watched the trees and felt Bellamy's presence at her shoulder and listened to the few low mutters from her people. She wasn't going back to camp. She knew this already. How could she? To face Raven, whose lost love she had slaughtered, to face Jasper, to whom she had done the same. To face her mother, with accusing eyes, and the friends of those Clarke was unable to save. No, Clarke wasn't going back.

Her words to Bellamy from so long ago, (but yet not really that long ago at all,) about not being able to run away echoed in her mind and self-loathing filled her heart, but it was no more than Clarke already grappled with daily. She didn't know if she was running from her people, her actions, or herself, but she couldn't go back.

The group had been walking for around two hours, and people were already stumbling. "We should take a break soon," Clarke said quietly to Bellamy, and he looked at her but said nothing.

Bellamy didn't blame her, not yet. He didn't know about TonDC. He didn't know about all that she'd done. He would find out, and then he would hate her as all the others would too; if they didn't already. And if he didn't, that may be even worse, because Clarke hated herself anyways.

No one should forgive her, as she wouldn't forgive herself. She had gotten over Finn's death, for the most part, but she didn't forgive herself. She understood why she did it, and would do it again, but she would never forgive herself. Neither would Raven, and the dull ache that filled Clarke's heart at that thought only solidified her decision.

  


A little while later, when Bellamy called the group to a rest for a moment, Clarke walked a little way off from the group. She would miss them when she left. She would miss Monty, and Jasper, Raven and Monroe, Bellamy and Octavia, Miller and Harper. She would miss who they were before the Mountain; before the Ark. She would miss the banter and the teasing and the standing untied against the world.

But that was already gone. Monty and Jasper hadn't spoken to each other, or actually spoken at all. Miller walked warily with his father. Harper shuffled beside Monty and Monroe, limping. Bellamy was silent and stoic, and Octavia had already thrice declared her feelings for Clarke before the mountain. (Smart girl, Clarke thought.) Raven had been carried in Wick's arms after she had nearly snapped her neck falling down yet again, and currently sat leaned against the engineer's side, with his arm wrapped around her.

  


The two girl's eyes met across the forest clearing and Raven sent her a tired quirk of the lips. Clarke looked away.

She took another step further, and Lincoln merged out of the woods.

"You've been following for a while," said Clarke, and he inclined his head. "Octavia is here too, isn't she." Clarke continued, and something akin to sympathy shimmered in the warrior's eyes for a moment.

"Are you going back to Camp Jaha?" Clarke asked, and the man stepped forwards more into the light. "Yes," he said quietly. "For now, at least."

Clarke tried for a smile but it came out as more of a grimace.

"How did you get away?" She asked instead, and Lincoln shook his head in bemusement. "Indra," he explained. "Indra let me go."

Clarke tilted her head. "On Lexa's orders?" Saying the commander's name conjured many feelings. Anger, certainly, but it was muted. What you would have done, Lexa had said, and Clarke couldn't decide if it was. There was a sense of loss, from their sort-of friendship, and the sting of betrayal still lingered on her tongue.

Lincoln shook his head. "Respect for Octavia, perhaps."

  


Octavia chose that moment to step out beside Lincoln. Clarke could feel her mental walls stacking up even higher than they already were, and prepared to feel the lash of Octavia's rage, but it never came. Octavia stared sullenly at her old friend and Clarke buried the layers of hurt deep inside.

She bowed her head and walked silently away instead, because Octavia had made her choice, and so had she.

_(Love is weakness.)_

  


When she stands by Camp Jaha's gate, she counts every head that walks into the encampment. There aren't nearly enough.

Monty stands by her side too. "You're not coming in, are you." He says, voice soft, and she turns to him.

"I'm sorry," she says, and he sniffles and shrugs.

"Come back," he tells her, and she gives him a smile. "I mean it," he insists, and Clarke nods. "I need you, okay?" Monty says softly. They hug, and then Bellamy approaches.

  


She kisses his cheek and blinks back tears because she knows that she's making the right decision. Bellamy must know it too, because his voice wobbles and cracks but he doesn't stop her.

"May we meet again," she says, and it's a promise, not a hope. She wonders if Bellamy knows this, and if his murmured response is anything to go by, he does.

She walks away from Camp Jaha and doesn't look back for hours.

  


(She goes to the bunker, Finn's bunker, and takes pencils and paper and even a blanket from a box, and looks around for a moment before screaming into the silence.)

  


She sleeps, the first night, a restless sleep plagued with nightmares and ghosts of things that never were.

When she wakes, she walks again, following a creek she finds rippling through the woods. Along the way, sometime midway through the third day, the fallen whisper through the trees behind her and she looks them in the eyes instead of hiding away, like she had been doing beforehand.

  


There's Charlotte, Wells, Atom, all more chiseled and clean than Clarke had ever seen them in reality. Grounders line the sides of the paths she finds, too many to count, and the white-clothed mountain men drift everywhere and nowhere at all.

She finds a pond, that day, and sits by the edge, watching her ghosts pass her by. They don't talk, they simply stare. She stares back.

  


"Love is weakness," she tries to say, but nothing happens. "I tried to save you," she offers them to no avail. "I'm so sorry," she whispers to the children who gaze up at her with blank eyes.

She looks at her hands that night, lit up by the moon and stars, and thinks she can see red dripping from her fingertips.

She cries, then, long and hard and with great big gasping sobs that leave her winded and empty, but full at the same time.

(Maybe crying proves that she's still human.)

  


She has just run out of tears to cry when Finn kneels in front of her. She sniffs and wipes the back of her hand across her nose.

"I'm sorry," she says hoarsely to his pale face, more ethereal than it should be. "I tried. I did what I thought best." Finn looks at her. "Love isn't weakness," Clarke finally chokes out. "Love is all I have. Love is how I get my strength." A tear drips down her cheek and she adds, "Love is what you fought for." Finn smiles at that, and he leans forward and rests his forehead against hers. Clarke closes her eyes and exhales deeply.

When she opens them again, Finn is gone. The other people around her (who only she can see) are vanishing too. Charlotte sends her a timid smile and Clarke has so much she wants to say to the tiny girl but in the end she just whispers, "I never meant for anything to happen to you, Charlotte," and the little girl fades away with the ghost of a smile over her face.

Maya's image is hard to address, because Clarke never knew the girl well. "Jasper loved you," she says slowly, and Maya smiles sadly, twisting her hands together. "I'm so sorry, Maya," Clarke whimpers after a moment, and Maya's eyes go soft. "You were so brave, and you were such a good person, and I can't-"'she breaks off and stares at her red dripping hands. "I can never repay you for what you did for my people. If I could have seen another way, I would have taken it." Maya reaches out and her fingers brush over Clarke's cheek.

When Clarke opens her eyes, Maya has disappeared.

  


The rest of the ghosts fade away more quickly after that, and some circle around the little pond, watching her quietly.

Clarke sleeps by the pond that night and only later does she wonder how it was that she remained untouched. When she wakes, all her ghosts have gone.

She's made peace with them, for now.

  


Her hands still have blood on them, though. It's dried and rusty and cakes under her fingernails and in the creases of her palms. Clarke strips off her layers of clothing and wades into the clear pond, dipping under the waterfall she hadn't noticed the night before, scrubbing her skin until it's pink and raw but clean.

She stares at her clothes for a few minutes, seeing red _red_ _**red**_ , before dragging them through the water again and again until they shine and the water around her is brown and red.

She waits for her clothes to dry before walking again. While she sits, she cups the clear water into her palms and soothes her aching throat. For the first time in far too long, Clarke has no blood on her hands, and it feels _good_.

  


She forages in the woods for berries, staying clear away from any she doesn't already know of, and spears through a rabbit with a rock.

Once she has the rabbit in her hands, she impales it on a stick, after carving off the fur with her knife. (The shiv that Raven gave her, the shiv that killed Finn.) She piles up dry sticks and twigs and then stares for a moment at the little campfire.

The campfire, without any fire. This, Clarke deduces, is a problem. She scratches rocks together until her fingers bleed, (and the blood is red _red **red**_ ,) but she doesn't give up, and eventually a spark catches onto a branch and she watches her little fire roast the rabbit propped above it.

She doesn't eat all of the rabbit, storing some of it up in leaves and sticking them in her pockets. She uses the rabbit fur, too, trying to leave it unscathed so she can try making a water pouch later. (She grabs the successful rocks as well.)

  


Clarke tallies up the nights she's spent away from camp next, and they amount to five, if she's correct. This brings her to the next problem. Where does she want to go? She could go to the sea, perhaps across it, search for the clan Lincoln told her about, with the woman named Luna. She could go to Polis, maybe, dye her hair and paint her face and watch the grounders who live there. Or perhaps she could go to mount weather, though she doesn't want to, dig graves for all those she's killed in a kind of sick ceremony.

She does none of these things, in the end. She climbs up the nearest mountain and surveys the location. Very distant smoke could be either from a grounder village or a hunting party from the sky people. She can still see Mount Weather, though, and suddenly she wants nothing more than to be away from it, to look up and not see the metal dishes stark against the blue sky, reminding her of everything she's done.

  


So she keeps walking until she can't see it anymore. She remembers, though, and draws the land she has crossed to the best of her ability using paper and pencils from the bunker. She finds a field filled with wild flowers and sits for an entire day in the middle of it, just breathing in the scent from the buds and lying in the grass, standing birds fly overhead and closing her eyes against the sun.

  


She stays there for over three weeks, hiding from the sun under the trees that ring the clearing, trees that she recalls are named birch trees. She draws, too. Faces, sometimes, but mostly locations. She draws everywhere she's been and everything she's seen. (Yes, even the creepy mutant leeches from that swamp she crossed.)

And a week later, her face is already darker and she stares at her reflection and doesn't immediately hate what she sees. She sets snares then, wrapping twine and dried grasses around sticks and tying them together into a contraption that Finn had taught her, but they don't work well at first.

  


Next is a net, which she weaves clumsily from dry reeds, and it catches her one fish in three days. (It's good fish, though.)

She tries two ways to make water pouches. In one, she takes the rabbit furs she has sewn together and covers them in fat, before setting them in a damaged pot she found in the bunker and watching the water boil, skins inside. Her other, very unsuccessful method, is to take the skins and put them on hot rocks, in the heat, to harden them.

The boiled theory works, sort of, on her third try, and she laughs for the first time in weeks. It catches both her and the birds by surprise, and three fly away in shock. She sews the furs together with a piece of bird bone and some string she grudgingly pulled from her blanket. In the end, she has a strange sweater, sort of, with leather on the outside and furs on the inside. It works, though, to keep out the cold.

She lives in a tiny shack made of pieces of timber and fallen logs, with a crude net of seaweed over the top and the entrance to try and keep the rain out. It's small, but she digs down into the ground with a scrap piece of metal she foraged, and it's large enough for maybe one and a half people to lie down along each side once she's finished.

Her mattress is made of straw and grass, and she catches more rabbits to make herself another blanket, using the meat as jerky, drying it out in the sun.

  


The thought crosses her mind only once to return to the mountain, not for supplies, but for a canvas and paints. Clarke has never used a canvas or paints. She doesn't, though, because not only is she not ready to face what she's done, but there are many rotting bodies buried deep down in the ground and that is really not something she feels like seeing.

She does, however, try and make a canvas of her own, by boiling down skins until they seem leathery and stiff. It's cracked and discoloured and patchy, but she stretches it tight over a support system of branches. She still has no paint, though, so she mashes berries and leaves together and comes up with blue, red, pink, green, brown, and purple. She paints a faded sunset, setting over the meadow.

It's a strange painting and not exactly what Clarke had intended, using furs wrapped on the end of a twig as a brush, but it's a painting nevertheless, and Clarke leans it against one of her walls and smiles.

  


On one particularly pleasant day, she sits outside and sketches for hours. She look up to find a gathering of deer, (mostly one-headed, thank goodness,) who have meandered into the valley. She flips to a new page and captures the scene in front of her. The deer return for four more days, and they left Clarke walk closer and closer to them each time.

When she outs a hand on the back of a particularly brave doe, a piece of her shattered heart re-attaches itself, and Clarke thinks she is healing.

  


She soon makes herself two spears, sharpened rocks fastened tightly to branches, and brings down a giant heron who tried to steal her fish. She whispers _Yu gonplei ste odon_  to it and feels guilty for the rest of the evening. She plucks the brilliant blue, grey, brown and black feathers and sews them into a blanket, and uses three to braid into her hair.

She is proud of her spears, and hides the gun she carried from camp Jaha under layers of clothes so she doesn't have to see it but she can still access it if need be.

She finds a lean red fox nibbling on their heron when she walks back to it, unsure what to do with it, and before it has noticed her she pulls out her sketchbook and draws him. She places a strip of jerky on the ground near her and the fox pads over warily. Clarke feels herself smiling in awe, and she makes eye contact with the beautiful creature. She takes a mental snapshot so she can draw the scene out again once the fox has left, but he stays for another two days, following her around and brushing his tail against her legs once. (She names him Eli and he poses for another drawing and she feels _content_.)

  


She makes another canvas, and paints the night sky. She tries to make a bow and finds it far too difficult the first five attempts in one day, but then finds a beautiful oak branch and can't herself from staying up the entire night, whittling and carving and tying the dratted thing until it's springy and strong and doesn't break. A bow needs arrows, though, and so then she spends hours making a stock pile, and putting together a very flimsy quiver; with twigs the only real support and leather tied around the outside and bottom.

She practises every day after, drawing rings on trees and shooting her arrows until she can get a bulls-eye almost every time. She glimpses a wolf, once, in the trees, watching her with gleaming yellow eyes larger than they should be.

She shoots an elderly deer the day after her bow and arrow practice is mostly complete and whispers _Yu gonplei ste odon_. She uses the skin to make herself a shirt, blanket/rug, and uses the meat as jerky. She carves his antlers into arrow tips and a knife, and even his hooves are transformed into spearheads. She is leaning well, and it fills Clarke with a strange sort of pride because she is _saving herself_.

She finds a wolf's body lying deep into the birch forest, and kneels by her and slits the dying wolf's throat. She wonders what happened to the massive wolf, but after a moment's consideration she painfully takes the animal's pelt.

  


She washes out the blood in a stream and makes herself a sort of jacket that pulls over her shoulders, almost like a cloak. It's warm, and she feels secure, in a way. She sees the other wolf from before a few more times too, and even tempts him out with some rabbit meat later. He is huge, but seems young in spirit. She calls him _Byron_ and knows he follows her most places. She doesn't know why, but it fills her with a warm feeling and she watches in fascination when he walks out beside her sometimes, and he eventually lets her place her fingers lightly on his back. (Her fingers are clean and so is her conscience.)

Nearly a month after leaving Camp Jaha, Clarke looks at her reflection and smiles.

  


The next day, she packs her three fur blankets into a raggedy bag, and piles all she posses into it. There's not much, the pot and two water skins, which she fills from the creek, rough jerky and berries, her small pot, three knives including Raven's shiv, her three sketch pads and her pencils. She slings her bag over her shoulder and her bow and full quiver over the other, braids her hair back from her face, and holds a spear in one hand.

She looks at her canvases and wonders what to do with them. She could carry them, but they're only extra weight. In the end, she unties the rough canvases from their supports and rolls them up to be re-used or re-attached later, and places them carefully into her bag.

  


Clarke heads back to the mountain she has spent three weeks trying not to think about and one week accepting what happened, and feels healed. Byron fades in and out of the forest behind her, and she doesn't look behind her.

Before she goes back, though, she goes to the sea. She watches the waves crash against the shore and sketches it until her fingers ache. Then she pulls out her third, empty canvas, stretches it over a temporary base, and paints the ocean as she sees it; savage and terrifying and inspiring and so very beautiful. She runs into the waves with Byron and laughs and feels free and happy and lets her tongue taste the sting of the salt spray. Byron shakes his fur all over her, and she splashes him back before finally heading out and changing back into her furs. She waits, then, for her painting to dry, and then she walks. 

The beach is beautiful, and in some places the sand is soft on Clarke's feet, in others it is cracked and hard from the glowing sun, and in certain spots it is so clean that when she moves along it the sand squeaks. She picks up rocks and shells and inspects them all carefully, rounded and smooth from the crashing waves. A giant crab scuttles past her and Byron chases it as Clarke laughs. She walks along the coast all day and then at the end of the day she turns around and heads back from where she came.

(But she doesn't forget to map everything out.)

  


She runs into a grounder village twice, and both times, no one stops her. She wonders if they know who she is, what she is, or if she looks like them. But even if she does look like the,, wouldn't they have rules about clans and borders? 

Byron walks in with her and she keeps a hand on his neck and feels strong. She doesn't question the grounders and their casual welcome, though, and stays briefly in each, soaking everything in while they chatter softly to her. Clarke thinks they aren't so bad.

(She loves their language and learns that it originated as a code to trick the mountain. It's fascinating, and Clarke picks up the words quickly, liking the way they roll of her tongue and tie her into the grounder culture. She feels like less of an alien, more anonymous yet familiar, and some of the little kids braid flowers into her hair. In one of the villages, where they know she was once Skaicru, she tells them stories Bellamy told her, about Greek myths and legends, and of the stars where she used to live.)

  


It takes her over five days to return to the mountain. At one point, she runs into a bear. She should be scared, but she's isn't, and she freezes slowly. The bear is young, and Clarke feels guilty when he charges at her because only one of them can get out of the scenario alive. They both know that. Kill or be killed. The story of her life, it seems. Byron flies at the lumbering bear, clamping onto his neck, and the bear roars. Clarke fights down her surprise at Byron's appearance and shoots the bear with three arrows. He runs toward her again, and she impales him on her spear before she can think it through.

Clarke stares at the bear's body, panting, and sits by him, whispers _Yu gonplei ste odon_ , and takes some of his pelt, throwing it into her bag. She takes his claws, too, and threads one into her hair after carving a hole in one end, threads four into the edges of her sort-of cloak, and attaches the remaining five into arrow tips for later use. Byron watches her and then tears into what's left of the bear while Clarke sketches how the bear looked, rearing up on his hind legs.

  


She walks past her ghost lake and refills her water-skins again, sets a snare, and eats a rabbit by its waters. Byron, who has appeared again, wolfs down his portion and his tongue lolls out of his mouth. Clarke sketches this quickly before she forgets how it looks.

  


She wonders if she is the same person who fell from the sky so long ago and decides that not all changes are negative.

Her hair is longer, (she had debated cutting it short but decided to keep it long so she can braid it back instead of having to have that awkward nothing length,) and braids and feathers and now a claw are intertwined in her curls. Her face is tanned, hands more scarred, and she even has a few freckles. There is a cut scarring on her right cheek, the remains from a swooping attack from some kind of huge eagle.

  


She smiles at her watery image and heads to Lincoln's village. They let her in, very easily, and she stays there for a few days, catching up with all that has happened since she left.

The grounders she once fought are surprisingly hospitable, and they teach Clarke more of their language while she stays. She draws some of their faces for them, and teaches some of their women her language, as only the Warriors can speak English. She writes down the words they say to her and hopes to be able to interact properly with them soon. She is learning very quickly.

 They tell Clarke that her people are restless; that they grow tired of Camp Jaha and all it's rules and adults. They tell her, with twinkling eyes, that 'The Belomi Boy' goes hunting most days and lingers where he said his goodbyes to Clarke.

One of the young women dances with her around the fire that evening and a small boy twirls her around in circles as people cheer. She listens to their stories and Indra watches her without words. Clsrke doesn't know what she is thinking, and right now she doesn't care. She doesn't care if they know who she is, not today. Clarke laughs and smiles and feels free. 

  


But she's also ready to go to her people. In the morning, she goes back to the dropship, where she scrubs the floor until it's clean and every trace of blood is gone. She cleans the floor of the outside next, bones piles up and burnt again. It doesn't do much but it creates more ash to blow away in the wind. She visits the graves too, and sits by Wells and talks to him for hours.

  


And when she's ready, she gets up, holds her spear and bow, takes a deep breath, and walks towards Camp Jaha.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **here come the kids, ready to run and rebel. ******

Raven almost has a heart attack when Wick runs into the engine room, picks her up and runs out the front door.

"What the hell, Kyle!" She roars, and he winces at her kicks.

"It's Clarke, she's back!" He exclaims, and Raven stills.

"What?" She whispers, "W-" Wick rushes her over to the gate, where she sees a group of teens crowding around Harper.

 

"It was her," the girl states confidently. "I'm sure of it." Bellamy is standing in the crowd, face unreadable and arms crossed. Lincoln, who has just appeared with Octavia, nods.

"She is back," he confirms, and people break into excited murmurs.

 

Bellamy steps forward, and Wick lets Raven slip out of his arms to teeter on one leg unsteadily for a moment.

"Lincoln," Bellamy says, "what's going on?" His voice is stern, and Lincoln actually cracks a smile.

"Clarke has returned from beyond the mountain." Everyone erupts, then, and exclaim loudly, " _let's go get her!_ " And, " _what are we waiting for?_ "

Bellamy holds up his hands. "Woah, okay. We can't all go-" "Why not?" Monroe snaps, and he continues, "Because it'll cause suspicion."

 

Everybody stills. "Abby," one delinquent mutters.

Abby. When Abby heard her daughter had left camp, she spat fire and rage before deflating and sulking for a few days. She seemed to hold Bellamy personally responsible, and glared at any of the former criminals.

" _Right_."

 

In the end, the people to go and confirm Clarke's arrival are Bellamy, (of course,) Monty, Harper, Jasper, to everyone's relative surprise, and Wick and Raven. Raven is furious when they protest at her offer, until Wick offers to come too. "You sure?" She asks sceptically, and Wick squeezes her shoulder. "I handled mount weather. I can handle a few hours to the dropship, just in case." Raven punches him for the last comment but then she kisses him instead.

They head off, and everyone claps their shoulders and say, "Bring her back."

 

 

* * *

 

Clarke had been setting a large hare from her snare when Lincoln dropped from the trees. Clarke had know there was someone there, and when he dropped down she had her bow knocked and aimed an arrow at his face before his feet touched the ground. So much time alone had made her in tune to the forest too, and Lincoln threw his hands up in surprise.

 

"Clarke," he said, relieved, "I heard you were back." Clarke threw her bow over her shoulder and picked up her hare.

She smiled at Lincoln and headed off, saying, "That so?" As she walked towards the dropship.

 

Lincoln followed her, and his breath caught as Byron merged into her side.

Clarke put a hand on Byron, who glared distrustfully at Lincoln, who did the same. She murmured to the wolf softly, and his hackles fell slowly, and Lincoln, to his credit, said nothing.

 

They walked into the clearing without making any noise, and Lincoln took it all in quietly.

She had started making another two huts, using trees she found fallen over from the various impact sites and crashes that took place near the dropship.

For now, though, Clarke stays in the dropship. She walked in and set her bow and quiver by the wall, and placed the rabbit on the counter she managed to piece together from scrap metal.

 

Lincoln looked around slowly. Clarke slept in the corner, on a pile of furs. Byron padded over to it and flopped down, watching Lincoln carefully. Over the entrance doorway, a weave of seaweeds and grasses kept most of the wind out, and Clarke had nailed pieces of wood together with metal shards, making a kind of chest, and she went and lifted the lid, taking out one of her bone knives.

She began to skin the hare silently, and Lincoln stood beside her after a moment. He looked at her paintings, which she had hung around the area. She took the fur and skin and hung them from the string and twice that crisscrosses over the roof. Two other pelts hung there already, dry, and Clarke tossed Byron half the hare.

She grabbed some of the herbs and leaves she uses to season her food, and walked outside. Lincoln followed her, taking all her hard work in. Three spears rested by the entrance, and one looked more used than the two others. A carved dagger was on the countertop, and a bone knife was in Clarke's hand. Two buckets of water rested by the wall, and as she passes them, she tossed her bone knife into one. The blood billowed around it and Lincoln smiled in understanding. Above the buckets, rags dangled, for drying, he supposed.

 

A pot sat on the counter, and three sketchbooks. Four jars sat there, one with different berries inside, one with dried jerky piled up inside, and the other with herbs and leaves. The other jar held pencils and pencil nubs, and Lincoln raised an eyebrow. He could see, through the open lid, that in her chest rests furs and coats, arrows and knives, and other little things, including a shell. Under the corner of one fur, (is that _bear_?) rested a gun handle.

 

Outside, Clarke started a fire expertly with two rocks, and set the hare on the spit.

She and Lincoln sat around the fire as the hare roasted, and Clarke leaned back against a log. "So," she said finally, as she took the hare off, split the meat into two, and handed Lincoln half.

 

They chewed silently, and Clarke alternated between staring into the fire and staring at Lincoln. When he was finished, he told her of her people. How Jasper and Monty had started talking in the second week, with pushes from Raven and Octavia. How Wick and Raven were a couple now, and Raven laughed at things he said. How Bellamy led the people bravely and inclusively but missed her a lot, struggling sometimes under the weight or responsibility. How Abby and Kane enforced all the ark's old rules and how two delinquents had been subject to electric lashing after causing a brawl. (Clarke frowned at this and Lincoln had nodded knowingly.) How the people of the ark went between needing the sky box criminals to survive and hating them and thinking themselves above common criminals; _children_. How they forgot how much those _children_ had sacrificed; how much they had done; how capable they were. He told her how her people wanted out, how they were all holding their breath until she came back so they could have a plan, a way to leave.

 

At that, Clarke frowned down at her hands and felt torn between her own freedom and her people's freedom.

Lincoln out a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, and he smiled. "You've done very well here, Clarke," he said, and she flashed back to what she had said to Bellamy so long ago. (Yet not so long at all.) _You did good here, Bellamy._

 

"So what will you do now?" Lincoln asked softly, and Clarke straightened her back, one hand on Byron.

 "Help my people." She said, and Lincoln pulled her into a hug. It caught her by surprise, as did conversation with anyone after so long in blissful solitude, but she returned it and closed her eyes.

"You know," Lincoln said, looking over her, in her furs and leathers, feathers braided into her hair, and her tanned skin, "you look like, one of us now." Clarke shrugged.

 

"I'm not Clarke of the sky people anymore, but I'm also not a grounder. I don't know what I am."

Lincoln smiled softly. "You're a survivor." 

As she watched him walk back to Camp Jaha, her people, and Octavia, his, Clarke didn't know to be proud of that or not.

 

* * *

 

 

Clarke is in the trees when they walk into the drop-space.

Raven is set down by Wick, and they look around. Aside from the dropship, there is also two cabins, one made of wood and one more like a support system of wood and with walls of pelts and furs. The dropship has a net over the doorway, and there is an unlit campfire with a roasting spit overtop.

 

Everyone takes a moment to just look around. Monty's laugh draws them into the dropship, and they see that Clarke has definitely been here. A raggedy countertop with jars of shrubbey and pencils, three sketchbooks, a chest, spears, and a bed of furs are not what Raven sees first. She sees the paintings.

There are three hanging from the walls. In one, there is a sunset splashed across the canvas, soft purples, pinks, and reds hanging over a shadowy green meadow, flowers dotted inbetween the grasses. Raven walks closer to inspect it, and laughs because it's beautiful and it's Clarke. 

Another painting depicts a starry night sky, the stars twinkling, moon shimmering over a lake. A small waterfall is hidden by the shadows, and clouds drift throughout the painting. But the last painting catches Raven's breath.

It's of the ocean. Waves crash onto a sandy beach, before the sand fades into pebbles and rocks. There is a blue sky over the waves, which have white tips and Raven thinks she can almost feel their splash.

 

She walks outside and suddenly freezes. There is a massive wolf standing in the clearing. She sucks in a breath. She had no weapons. She makes a tiny squeak, and the wolf snarls. Wick and Bellamy step outside and suddenly stop, seeing what made Raven whimper so uncharacteristically. Harper, who was next to Raven earlier, comes outside, beaming at the of signs of Clarke, and stiffens when she sees the wolf. Bellamy's mind is racing, and Monty and Jasper join the party, brows furrowed and questions dying on their lips.

" _Nobody... Move..._ " Growls Bellamy, and Raven snaps, "Wasn't planning on it!"

Right as Bellamy reaches down for a rock to lobb at the giant beast, something drops down from the trees, straightening up immediately to lessen the impact. Her long blonde hair is loose and wavy, and braids and feathers adorn her head. She wears a kind of dark fur cloak, grey and brown and black, and her shoulders seem large due to another fur layer piles on her figure, before a leathery brown jacket covers a black and tan shirt. Her boots are hidden behind brown pants, and she has a bow and quiver slung over one shoulder and a dead bird dangles from her fingers.

For a moment no one says anything, then, "Clarke?" Jasper whispers in shock. Clarke breaks into a small smile. She tosses the wolf the bird, which he catches deftly in his mouth, and wiggles her fingers.

 

"Hey." She says casually. "Miss me?" Monty rushes forward and wraps her into a hug and Clarke looks so surprised that Raven just laughs. Bellamy is smiling, relaxed, for the first time in days, and Jasper looks torn about going and joining the hug. Harper has no such qualms and squeezes Clarke tightly.

 

Clarke pats her back awkwardly. "Um, hi to you too," she manages, and Monty and Harper draw back. Raven steps forward and demands a hug with arms wide open, and Clarke obliges, and then Wick holds his hand out. (For a moment, Clarke almost clasps his forearm like she does to the grounders, as is their way, and her way, now, as she has only talked to grounders for over a month, but she remembers to shake it just in time.) Wick is surprised by the iron in her hand and smiles because he hardly knew her before but he likes her already and has heard enough stories to admire her.

Raven, who stands beside them both, sees Clarke hesitate for a second, but doesn't know why.

 

Raven and Wick draw back, and Clarke looks at Jasper. "Clarke-" he starts, voice choked, and Clarke smiles. "It's okay," she says softly, evolving the boy in a hug. He grips her tightly and his shoulder shake for a moment, but then he's fine and has drawn back to let their two leaders reunite.

Bellamy tilts his head. "About time, Princess," he says, but he's smiling, and then Clarke is laughing, (and has Raven ever heard her laugh before?) Clarke grasps his forearm at the same time as he grabs hers and says, "I suppose."

 

They grin at each other, in synch again, and then everyone slowly looks back to the humongous wolf.

Clarke nods. "Oh! Right. Byron, friends. Friends, Byron." She whistles slightly, and the wolf, Byron, tosses her the bird back, before padding over to her comfortably and settling down on his haunches.

Raven is laughing again. "Only you, Princess," she says, and Clarke smiles, _again,_ so Raven does too.

Raven has never seen Clarke smile this much, ever. It makes her look younger, happier, lighter. Raven thinks maybe the month and a half she was gone was worth it after all.

 

"Come on in," Clarke hums, striding soundlessly over to the drop-ship, and everyone follows her in. She drops her quiver and bow against the wall, and goes over to the chest, pulling out a knife, before heading to the counter and dragging a woven basket over to her, and beginning to casually pluck the bird in her hands, placing the feathers in the basket and watching her friends quietly.

Raven looks around properly this time, and takes in the skins dangling from the ceiling, the necklace of giant claws around Clarke's neck and the claw and feathers in her hair, the furs on Clarke's makeshift bed, the little jars of fireflies sitting around the room, and everything so inexplicably _Clarke_. 

Clarke tosses her knife into a bucket of water that no one had noticed and leaves the bird on the counter for the moment.

 

"Oh!" She says after a moment, "I almost forgot..." She goes over to her chest and rummages in it for a moment. "This is for you," she says, throwing Raven a bag. Raven opens it, and finds equipment from the ark.

"What!" Raven laughs, "how-?" Clarke shrugs. "Ark wreckage." She then pulls out a rolled up piece of parchment, and hands it to Bellamy. 

Bellamy unfurls it slowly, and Clarke takes one end, as it's large paper. "It's a map," she explains. "Of everywhere I've been. Thought you should see it."

Raven can see Mt Weather marked down, along with _Drop-Ship, Ghost Lake, Wild Flower Meadow, Eli's Woods, TonDC, Tirahlee, Jocush_ , which Raven assumes are other grounder villages, _Leech's Swamp,_ and _the Sea_. There is much more, too, including things like _Deer Ground, Eel River,_ and _Rabbit's Bend_ , and Raven whistles.

"Wow, Clarke," she breaths. "You've been busy." Clarke just smiles.

 

Wick looks up from the map. "You here to stay this time?" He asks softly, and means for only Clarke to hear, but Raven can still hear him and sucks in a breath. Clarke takes a moment and then nods. Raven exhales.

 

"So how is everyone?" She asks, and Raven smirks. "Hasn't Lincoln already told you everything?" Clarke shrugs and grabs the bird, heading outside.

"Some, but I want to hear it from you." Raven shrugs and eases herself down onto a log around the fire, leaning into Wick, and watches as Clarke expertly prepares the bird, impaling it on the spit, and sprinkling some kind of ground-up poultice overtop.

"If we tell you our stories," Raven adds, "you have to tell us yours." Clarke shrugs and sets the fire before pulling out a sketchbook she grabbed from inside. "Fair enough," she says, and draws Raven and Wick as they are, leaning into each other, smiling softly, before setting her book down and listening avidly as Raven continues to tell her story, with everyone else joining in slowly.

 

When the bird is done, Clarke sets it inside and brings out some leftover deer from a few days ago, due to her clearly feeding more mouths again tonight. Then she serves everyone, including Byron, who still doesn't like the newcomers, and they all praise her cooking, practically moaning, complaining about the rationed portions in Camp Jaha.

 

"They say we have to wait until everyone else has had something to eat since we're _criminals_ ," complains Harper, licking her fingers, and Clarke hands her another piece of bark with bird on top. (She had debated making stew, but doesn't have enough carved wooden bowls.) "As if that even _matters_ here! So much for being _pardoned_."

"And they won't let us use guns," adds Jasper, scowling. "They can't take our knives, they can't find them, but they took all of our guns."

Clarke thinks about the gun in her chest, and almost offers it, but says nothing.

"They think we're dangerous," adds Monty, "but they want our help for everything."

Bellamy snorts. "They ask us to hunt for them and then they don't want us to eat. We've taken to hiding half the food we catch." Clarke feels furious, but her face stays impassive.

 

After the group had grumbled for a little while longer, Wick speaks up. "What about you, Clarke?" He asks. "What's your story?" Clarke hesitates for a moment, but then takes a breath and settles back against a log, hand intertwined in a dozing Byron's fur. Raven exchanges grins with Harper. _This is it,_ the grand story.

 

Clarke waits a moment, then says, "At first, I just walked. I didn't have a destination in mind, I just... Wanted to get away from everything, I guess." Wick puts his arm around Raven, and she looks around the clearing, her friends all reunited in the evening light.

She listens as Clarke describes walking until she couldn't see the mountain, and thinks her friend is keeping something back but doesn't push it.

"I went through forests, and over hills, and in swamps," Clarke says, her voice the only sound in the clearing. "Giant leeches are a thing, and they're awful, if you're wondering." Bellamy cracks a smile.

"Basically, I just wandered, until I came to this meadow, far away from here. It was beautiful, with wild flowers and tall grass, and there was a birch forest around it." She gets a faraway look in her eye. "I stayed there for a while. Made myself a little hut, and sketched, because I didn't know what else to do with myself." Even as she is speaking, Raven notices, she twists the nub of a pencil in her hands, and flips to a new page in her book, casually drawing the group around the fire.

"I learned how to make do. Made a fishing net, and some snares... A spear. I met a fox and a heron, and I guess there weren't many people in the area, if any, because all the animals were very welcoming." She smiles, lost in a memory as she sketches.

"I tried to make a bow, and then spent a while trying to get it right. I went walking a lot too, the forests were beautiful and the only inhabitants were other animals. Sometime during my walks, Byron started following me around." She looks down briefly at the massive wolf before continuing, "I guess he just decided I needed a guard dog, so I let him be. He's a good hunting partner, so it worked, and I stayed in the meadow for... Sometime over three weeks, I suppose. When I was ready, we headed to the sea, Byron and I."

 

She pulls a large seashell out from inside a pocket and hands it to Raven, who inspects it with wonder before passing it around and then makes its back to Clarke.

"The sea was... It was beautiful. Cold, definitely, but worth it." She scratches Byron's head.

"I visited a couple villages on the way back, traded some things there, and also met a bear, which was an experience. And then when I came back here, I stayed in Lincoln's village for a little while, before coming here and tidying up."

She shrugs, finishing her drawing. "The end." 

There is silence for a few moments, and then Harper speaks up. "It's not the end," she says suddenly. "It's not."

 

Clarke looks up in confusion. "We need you," Harper says plainly. "Everyone needs you." Clarke opens her mouth, perhaps in discomfort, Raven isn't sure, but Harper keeps talking. "Everyone wants to leave Camp, it's no secret, and we've all been waiting for you."

Jasper nods, and Monty too. Clarke's forehead is furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"We want to leave," Jasper says. "Why don't we go to your meadow, all of us?" Clarke frowns. "It's too far away from Camp Jaha. What if they need us?" "Screw them," mutters Raven, and Clarke seems tense again.

Bellamy puts a hand on Clarke's shoulder and she looks up at him. They have a silent conversation no one can interpret, and Clarke's mouth tightens.

 

Bellamy clears his throat, tearing his eyes away from his co-leader and friend. "We'll talk about this later, guys. We need to be heading back before anyone gets suspicious."

Clarke hugs them and waves them off, and Bellamy stays behind and exchanges words no one else can hear. Raven watches Clarke wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his shoulder, and then they're gone and Clarke watches her friends leave with mixed emotions.

 

(Part of her wishes that she had stayed in her Meadow.)

=======

Jasper listens to the whispers around him, saying _she's back, she's here, she'll make it all okay_ and can only feel guilt. Everyone here, all of Jasper's friends, his family, they what Clarke to come save them, again, and Jasper thinks that every time Clarke saves them, she loses herself.

She saved herself by walking away. She came back with tanned skin and freckles and lighter eyes and the first thing people want to say to her is _help us, help us, help us._

He wonders if Clarke prefers being alone; after two years of solitude. He wonders why she came back. He wonders how she had the strength. She was happy in her Meadow, he can tell from the way she relaxes and the softness in her voice as she talks about it.

And by the time they left, they had already made her frown.

 

 

Jasper had hated Clarke for a while after Maya's death, and he denied that she could have possibly done the right thing, because they were all dead _dead_ _DEAD_ and it was her fault. He was angry, then, but then he was just sad. Maya would never have been able to live, not without a bone marrow transplant, and the arkers didn't have the technology to make a transplant, even if anyone volunteered. And her people had labeled her a traitor. Then it was guilt, because maybe it was all Jasper's fault after all for even getting her involved.

But Maya would hate to hear him thinking like that, so he tried to smile more and signed up for jobs around camp, before the arkers became so prejudiced. And after they did, well, he could direct his anger to someone else so it all worked out fine.

 

Bellamy came and yanked him out of his thoughts by sitting next to him on the roof of one of the parts of the downed ark.

He sat, silent, one leg up and one dangling over the edge, and Jasper watched him for a moment before looking over the forest again silently.

"We can't keep this from Abby for long," Bellamy said finally.

Jasper looked at him. "If we leave, will the grounders still avoid this area?"

Bellamy shrugged. "Where would we go?"

Jasper sighed. "Would the grounders leave us alone and let us find a place to stay?"

Bellamy's mouth twitched. "How will we find a piece of unclaimed territory close enough to the camp that Clarke won't panic?"

Jasper looked at his hands. "Will Clarke even want to come back to us?"

Bellamy frowned at him. "Can you forgive her?"

Jasper swallowed. "Can she forgive herself?"

"She already has."

"So have I."

And that was that. 

 

======

 

Two days later, Clarke walks into camp. She's wearing her furs, her hair is freshly braided, and three knives are strapped to her legs and arm. Byron isn't with her, and Jasper thinks that was probably a good move. People gawk and stare and their jaws drop, and Bellamy walks up to her at the gate and clasps her forearm again and she smiles, and Jasper can see that the Princess is back. She's not free like she was when they first saw her after one and a half months, but she's not world-weary and broken like she was before. She's Clarke Griffin and everyone can see it.

She has a sword strapped to her back, which Clarke had told him was a gift from a village, and her quiver and bow are on her shoulders again. He knows there are probably more knives strapped all over her,  and she can whistle once and have a massive wolf at her side, and she can most certainly hold her own in a fight, but Jasper thinks that she's never looked more regal.

 

Kids gasp and point, adults whisper and stare, teenagers step back in surprise and mutter, and the delinquents who were sent to earth so long ago smile and laugh and send her encouragement without words because _this is it_. 

Bellamy Blake is at her side and the delinguints march behind and Jasper feels proud of his makeshift family.

 

Abby Griffin and Marcus Kane storm through the crowd, scowling, confused, and stop when they see Clarke.

Abby's eyes go wide and she whispers, " _Clarke_ ," hand dropping. Clarke lets her mother hug her, but she doesn't relax. "Mom," she says quietly, hugging back, and Abby slowly pulls away. 

"Where have you been? Come on, you should go to medical, we have to talk-" Clarke cuts her off. "No, mom. I'm fine." Hurt flashes over Abby's face and she hardens. 

"Clarke, honey, we have to talk." Clarke nods cooly. "We do." She doesn't move. 

 

Monty, who is beside Jasper, grins. _Brave Princess._ They'd all heard the story, ("You may be chancellor but I'm in charge,") and here it was happening _again_.

(Couldn't Abby take a hint?) 

 

"I've heard how you've been treating my people." Abby's eyes flash. "Your... Friends... Knew where you were, and they _didn't tell me_?" Clarke remains calm. "Chancellor Griffin, there are currently seven members of Trikru in the branches above and around this camp. Don't blame this on my friends. _People_ _talk_." On cue, everyone's heads swivel up to the trees and Jasper wonders how she knew. 

Abby takes a step closer to Clarke, and the delinquents shift uneasily. "Clarke," Abby hisses lowly, "these people are criminals." Clarke's eyes narrow. She doesn't lower her voice. 

"These are my people, my friends, my family. And I am a criminal too, you may recall." She spits out the last three words with a venom most people don't understand, Jasper included, but Abby reels back.

 

Clarke continues crisply, "My people need their weapons back." Kane steps up. "Clarke-" she cuts him off harshly. "They need to be treated equally. Or I will leave, and anyone who wants to come with may do so." A resounding cheer goes up from the delinquents. Every single survivor of the first 100 will follow her, and Jasper hopes she knows. Clarke speaks up again and they all fall silent.

 "We can hunt, you can't. We can teach you, if you can get over your pride and distrust, and share the food equally among all. Or, we can hunt for ourselves and you can figure it out. Make your choice, chancellors." With that, she inclines her head and walks off, the fourty-four following closely behind.

 

Once they are far enough away, out of earshot, everyone laughs and claps Clarke on the back and shoulders and hug her and whoop because _she's back._  

Jasper high fives Monty and hugs Clarke and chatters excitedly with the other delinquents. He doesn't think they'll stay; not really, not for long. It won't work. The arkers will try and keep them, pressure or blackmail them, but they are wild and free and dangerous. Jasper's mother died on the way to the ark, as did Monty's parents, so there is nothing keeping them tethered to Camp Jaha, but some others may feel differently.

As it turns out, they don't. "My dad can come if he wants," Miller shrugs. "But I'm going." "If my parents want to come, sure," another girl agrees, "but you're all really my family now." People mumur  in agreement, and Jasper flushes and he's glad he wasn't the only one with that thought. 

 

Clarke tells them a short version of her story, that night, and tells them about Earth. They are all eager to hear about the snowy mountains and the murky swamps and the open plains, because these are the children from space with a lust for life and a will to survive.

In the morning, guns are grudgingly distributed among them and Bellamy pulls Clarke to his side and kisses her forehead, grinning, when they think no one can see, and Clarke laughs. (Three people gasp because _Clarke_ _laughed_ , oh my gosh.)

The hunting party leaves with both Bellamy and Clarke, and comes back with two deers. (The delinquents keep half of one for themselves.)

 

It goes on like this for two weeks. Clarke disappears sometimes, wandering or going back to the dropship, and teams spirit of to the dropship to continue building too, because even they aren't sure if that's where they'll go when everything falls apart, probably not since the Ark is rather close by and knows where it is, but they will need _somewhere_ to stay temporarily.

Because everyone knows that it will fall apart, soon. The guards sneer at the more experienced teenagers, the adults growl when the kids dig into food, the teenagers watch them with contempt, and Abby and Kane glare at them all, Abby more so. The little kids don't mind them though, even though those who still have parents pull them away and cover their eyes. The kids like hearing about Earth and all the adventures that the delinquents have had. They particularly like Bellamy, the brave Rebel King, and Clarke, the fierce and kind healer Princess.

 

Just over two weeks later, it happens. A guard starts a brawl, yelling that Monroe was disrespecting the chancellor, and had illegal possessions of firearms. Monroe watches him, disgusted, as the guard rages, and a crowd begins to gather, the battle-hardened teenagers tense already, ready to have Monroe's back if need be. The guard raises a hand and tries to slap Monroe, but she ducks back easily,   before another guard punches her nose. Clarke steps through.

"What the hell is going on here?" Clarke asks, voice frigid, and someone pulls a bleeding Monroe into the fray. The livid guard snaps, "Don't worry, _princess_ , this has nothing to do with you." People's eyes go wide and they wince for the guard. 

Clarke raises an eyebrow. "You just assaulted a minor for no good reason." Monroe grumbles at the _minor_ comment but stays in the shadows for now. "This has everything to do with me." The guard lets out a roar and charges at Clarke, and she's had it. She steps aside and lets him fall into the dust. The other guard swings a fist ad her face and she kicks his legs out from under him. Then one pulls oth a gun. Clarke tilts her head and whistles. The delinquents who already know what this means, only a select few, rush back. 

The guard sneers and cocks the gun. He's about to shoot and uncaring Clarke when a massive grey, black and white blue barrels through the gate and knocks into the offending guard. Byron, massive and terrifying, leans over the trembling guard and snarls ferociously.

Clarke allows herself a smirk, and gives Jasper a look. This is it.

He trills out the signal, which could be mistaken for bird call, and all over camp, the delinquents grab their stuff in relief. 

Clarke calls out, "Byron!" And he trots over to her side, hackles raised. She slips him a piece of jerky for being understanding, as Byron doesn't love following anyone's orders and has no reason to, really, but he loves and respects Clarke. Clarke grabs the guard's collar and hauls him to his feet, grabbing the other one as well, and she drags them off for the final confrontation.

======

Abby Griffin was having a perfectly normal day until Clarke marched into her tent, where she and Kane were discussing a problem with the delinquents, and dropped two shaking guards at their feet, arms crossed and eyes crackling.

"Clarke?" Kane asked, "what is this? Have you attacked a _guard_? Do you have any idea what the punishment and repercussions for that will be?" Clarke lets him finish before snapping, "this isn't working anymore. Your guard assaulted one of my people, a minor, because she was holding a gun, while going to relieve someone on guard duty. She was well within the rules and rights, and then when I stepped in, this idiot," she snapped at one cowering man, "tried to shoot me." 

Kane is stiff. "Is this true?" He asks, "He will be punished accordingly, Clarke," Kane says when the guard says nothing, avoiding his yes, but Clarke interrupts. 

"I wasn't finished." Her voice is icy and Kane actually stops talking. 

"Your people disrespect mine constantly. You both see us as inferior because of minor crimes on the ark that you believed had to be punished severely due to those circumstances. Here, there are no such circumstances, and your promised pardon is yet to be seen." 

 

Abby, realizing the dangerous territory she and Kane are in, tried to reason with her daughter. "Clarke, honey," she said placatingly, "that can be arranged-" Clarke held up a hand. "Let me talk." She snapped.

"We are sick of being treated like children when we understand the ground better than any of you arkers." Kane chuckled uneasily. "Clarke, we, your friends, _you_ are arkers too." 

Clarke fixed him with a furious stare. "Oh really? Is that how you've been treating us, then? Like _arkers_?" Kane fell silently, jaw twitching. 

"We have tried to remain patient with you," Clarke continued bitingly. "We have made every effort while you did nothing. So we are leaving."

 

"What?" Abby gasped, "you- you can't," Clarke titled her head. "Yes, we can. We will. We will send you a messenger in a weeks' time to let you know where our camp is."

_How long had they been planning this?_ Abby's head swum. 

"I'm sorry, mom," Clarke added, softening her voice slightly, "but you don't actually get a say in this."With that, she swivelled on her heel and walked out of the camp, leading her people and all they possessed out to an uncertain (but still  _free_ ) future, while the leaders of their prison stood paralyzed and unable to do a thing. 

 

In the end, all the delinquents leave. They take their tests, their guns, their supplies, and Kane reassures the people that it made no difference, because _arkers stick together_ and the criminals were clearly not arkers anymore, his empty words meaning nothing to their earth-touched hearts.

 

(Neither leader knew that when the messenger came, a week later, a few families would think and plan about leaving too, to their children or to a better future, along with many of the determined orphans, holding hands with the younger kids, watching Nathan Miller and his friends as they walks on the two day hike to their new camp.)

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

They go to the dropship. Everyone wraps up in Clarke's furs and their own thinning blankets and spread out in the four buildings that the groups had managed to piece together, huddling together and laughing until they fall asleep.

Bellamy and Clarke guard them, taking first watch, and Clarke leans into Bellamy's side and they talk in low voices. (Not all the kids are actually asleep, particularly not all of the youngest delinquents, but listening to their leaders' voices is incredibly reassuring, not that they'll ever say so.)

 

In the morning, Clarke collects the rabbits from the snares and straps she had set beforehand and shoots down two robins. She gathers nuts and berries too, and by midday everyone has eaten and is ready to move on.

"Where will we go?" A girl called Mary calls out, and Bellamy glances at Clarke.

 "Clarke says she knows of a clearing around a day away from here. It's surrounded by forest and unclaimed by any tribes." People murmur in a mixture of excitement and nerves, and Clarke and Bellamy watch everyone out the gates, carrying bags and furs on their backs and on stretchers. Tents have been rolled up, clothes have been collected, and leftover food is bundled up tightly.

 

Bellamy watches the trees, face tight, and Clarke touches his wrist. "She'll be fine," she says, and Bellamy looks down at her. "She'll probably visit, too," Clarke adds. "Lincoln wouldn't pass it up." Bellamy smiles down at her and slips his hand into hers, and the leaders of a group of brave delinquents walk out of their abandoned camp. (Not for the first time, and the reminder of what happened last escape attempt lurks in everyone's mind, but they say nothing, trusting their leaders.)

 

It takes just over a day to reach the clearing, and people remain mostly silent for the hike, occasionally having conversation with each other but for the most part taking in the forest and how the trees change from pine trees to oak and other trees they don't know the names for.

The third night away from Camp Jaha is spent in the clearing, in tents, gathered around one big campfire, and Clarke exhales and breathes in the earth air and falls asleep wrapped in a fur blanket, sitting by the fire, next to Bellamy. Her head rests on his shoulder and his head is on hers, and the only other person to see them like are Raven and Wick, who get up for their watch and walk by the two. Raven smiles and nudges Wick, and he laughs softly. (They don't breathe a word of it to anyone, for fear of their lives.)

 

In the morning, everyone gathers around the fire and puts up ideas on how the camp could look. Most people prefer tents, where they can hear the wind and feel the sun, but Clarke reminds them that winter is coming. Seasons are a new concept for children born and raised in space and everyone takes a moment to ponder this in wonder.

 

They work on a wall first, thicker and larger than the one around the dropship. There are two gates, and five towers, (which are really just ladders leading up to a flat part of the wall with pikes around the little spaces;) serving as watchtowers.

The wall itself is a mixture of sharp pikes, horizontal poles and logs, and plates of metal. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when it's finished, because it provides a sense of security and lets people develop a routine with the watchtowers. The wall is less for necessity, and more comfort, but it certainly lets everyone breathe easier.

 

The first building constructed is a med bay for Clarke, made of wooden planks and metal. She piles all her equipment in immediately and makes people sit on a sturdy examination table when they come inside. She fills rough cabinets with herbs and poultices and rags for binding wounds, brings buckets of water inside, and stands with her hands on her hips after all is said and done and nods in approval.

 

Next is a food and weapons storage room. It's made of only wood and takes longer than the med bay, but it helps people worry less about wild animals barging into their tents. The building built after it is the first cabin, with one room, large enough for two people lying down on each side. Clarke teaches people how to make rugs and blankets, and they place deer-skin carpet over the rough wooden floor. The delinquents make mattresses too, woven from dry grasses and straw, and place furs overtop. The door is harder to come up with, and for a while it's just a very tightly woven mesh of seaweed, but eventually Miller finds a type of tree that the kids are able to transform into doors.

(By the time the cabin is finished, there are two others already on the way because it is autumn and people are realizing that hypothermia and frostbite are real problems.)

 

Clarke still goes on long hikes with Byron, who comes and goes from the camp as he pleases and prefers to wander rather than to sit still. She finds another sketchbook buried in Finn's bunker, when she can face up to returning to it, and brings back blankets, candles, and matches.

 

She draws the colourful leaves falling from trees, the fruit she finds hanging from branches, and the giant pumpkin she sees one day. (She lugs it all the way back to camp and they have pumpkin stew for three days.) Animals are everywhere, preparing for the winter months, and Clarke's snares and traps are never empty, and neither are her pages. She takes a hint from the squirrels, though, and everyone pitches in to stock up.

Wick, who is still newer to the Earth but followed Raven to her people, laughs over it one day as Clarke helps two other teenagers dry out version.

_("You've all become chipmunks, Clarke, it's hilarious!")_

 

Clarke wonders about how everyone is going to drink, what with the creek that runs throughout the camp most likely going to freeze over, and pleads and demands until Bellamy organizes a group of people to dig down until they reach water, which then becomes a well, with wooden buckets lowered down with rope to bring up the relatively clear water. (Clarke silently thanks the notoriously clean British Columbian water for this.)

Octavia and Luncoln walk in through one of the gates one particularly windy day, and everyone greets them easily and Octavia looks more and more surprised when Bellamy scoops her into a hug and murmurs, "Thank god, O, you're okay," and she hugs him back and asks, "Why wouldn't I be?"

He pries her off of him and says incredulously, "You never came to visit!" Octavia stammers and goes red and says, "I- I thought," and Bellamy waves her excuses off. Lincoln mutters "I told you so," and clasps arms with Clarke silently. Octavia doesn't speak to Clarke, that first day, and Clarke avoids her like the plague because Octavia's scathing words from the mountain are seared onto her heart. To her credit, Octavia nods at Clarke across the fire, and Clarke almost looks behind her to see if Octavia was addressing someone else.

They don't stay long, the grounder power couple, but they go in between the arkers, the grounders, and the delinquents and bring news with them until Bellamy offers them a cabin and invites them to stay, at least for now, until winter has passed. It takes them a while to agree to his offer, but when they do Octavia wraps Clarke into a hug and says, "I forgive you," and they move on.

 

There are eleven cabins built already and another three on the way when frost coats the grass for the first time.

Clarke steps outside her med bay, where she had spent the night after wrapping up Monty's hand, (he had tripped and impaled it on a twig,) and her boot crunches strangely on the grass outside her door. She does a double take and looks down to find that the grass is covered in a thin sheet of white, like ice, and she spends a few seconds enjoying the sound it makes as she steps on the ground before laughing at the sky. Bellamy walks up to her, grinning at her smile, and bumps her shoulder.

"Cool, huh?" He asks, and she nudges him back. "You won't be saying that when people can't walk barefoot for too long anymore," she smirks, and then they go to empty the snares together.

 

The building goes even quicker after that, and the other three cabins are completed in a week. People begin to move into them, warily, packing up their tents, and settle in with mixed feelings; relief to have beds, reluctance to leave what they are accustomed to, happiness to be out of the wet and damp, distrust at having to be in an actual building again. (Or, technically, for the first time.)

 

There are fifteen cabins complete when Bellamy sits in the med bay as Clarke stitches his shoulder up after a run-in with a panther.

"We should consider a bigger building," he muses, and Clarke yanks a bone needle through his skin.

"Why?" She asks, curious, and he looks up at her.

"Like a mess hall, maybe," he adds, "with a fire, for warmth, and so people can gather and talk and eat together sometimes." Clarke thinks on this and nods slowly, and a couple days later they ask everyone on their opinions. It's a rather resounding agreement that meets their ears, but they never do get the chance to begin construction.

 

"Wake up!" Bellamy rushes into the med bay and yanks Clarke up from where she is curled up into a ball by the wall, and she blinks sleep from her eyes as he drags her outside. He hasn't even snapped at her about needing to get a proper cabin and _getting_ _some damn rest, Clarke,_ and her mind jumps to numerous conclusions, none of them good.

"What's wrong?" She asks, panicked, and he grins at her. "Nothing, nothing," and before she can yell at him for interrupting her much needed sleep, he continues, "look up." Clarke glares but doesn't question him, and looks up to see _snow_.

 

There are snowflakes drifting lazily through the crisp early morning air, and Clarke gasps. She watches with fascination as one lands on her nose and sticks out her tongue, turning around in place, beaming,  when- _splat_.

Clarke whips around to see what hit her, and Bellamy is standing in the fallen snow, which is already up past Clarke's ankles, with snowy fingers. Clarke's jaw drops.

Bellamy scoops up more snow and throws it at her, and it hits her shoulder. Clarke laughs and piles snow into her hands, aiming for Bellamy's face. "You're going down, Blake," she threatens, and crows when her snowball meets its mark.

 

They are skidding around the campsite, pelting each other with snow from roofs and walls and the ground and Clarke feels _free_ and _happy_ and _wild_ , when Bellamy slows to a stop in front of her. She crashes into him, feet skidding, and grabs onto his shoulders to keep from slipping. She peeks over his shoulders to see what happened, and sees Raven, Wick, Octavia, Lincoln, Harper, Monty, and Jasper all staring at them in shock. Clarke ducks back down and before she can even process what she's doing, she throws a snowball at Wick's chest.

He staggers back and turns to Bellamy, offended, who has caught onto Clarke's plan and aims his snowball at Monty while Clarke prepares a missile intended for Raven. Octavia lets out a surprised laugh and makes her own snowball, and from there on it's a full on war, the camp waking up and joining in, a massive free for all and alliances being formed and broken everywhere Clarke turns.

(Raven, Harper, and Octavia exchange soft, knowing smiles when they see Clarke pull Bellamy close and shove a fistful of snow into his face before running off, laughing, leaving him spluttering after her.)

 

The novelty of snow wears off after a few days, when it becomes cold, wet slush, and Clarke treats three cases of frostbite in the first week. The next time snow hits, most people stay inside. 

There is a blizzard one day that goes on for hours and Raven drags Clarke out of the med bay and into her and Wick's cabin, where she sees Monty, Jasper, Octavia, Lincoln, Harper, and Bellamy already there.

They gather together and lean against walls, coated in fur blankets, talking and playing board games stolen from the bunker as the wind howls around them. Not for the the first time, Clarke worries for Camp Jaha, and Bellamy swings an arm around her shoulders as if he knows. He probably does, and she sends him a thankful smile, tuning back into the conversation and smiling as Jasper, Raven, and Monty trade sass and Harper and Wick exchange exasperated looks.

(Clarke is happy and content and she has a _family_.)

 

The second day of the blizzard, when the snow is settling down, Miller rushes into the med bay, panting, face coated in snowflakes. "Grounders," he says. "Two of them, outside. They're asking for you." Clarke drops her cleaning rag and pulls her hood low over her face, pushing against the flying snow outside until she reaches the gate. 

 

True to Miller's word, two grounders stand just outside it. One is leaning on the other, arm slung over shoulders, and Clarke understands. 

"Let them in," she shouts to Samuel, who is at the watchtower, and he sends her an incredulous look but does as she asks, and Clarke leads the two stumbling tribespeople into her med bay.

"Bear," says the un-injured one, and Clarke helps the wounded onto her stamina toon table, peeling blood-stained furs off to reveal three long, bloody gashes stretching from his left shoulder and along his chest. Clarke frowns, going into doctor-mode, and glances at the woman, (she can see that now,) as she grabs a bottle of moonshine from a counter. 

The gashes in his torso seem to be at least a day old, and in this weather Clarke doesn't think that will have done him any favours. The woman un-clasps her mask and wrings her hands, and Clarke snaps, "Hold him down." and the woman rushes to obey as Clarke pours the moonshine over his cuts. He thrashes for s moment, eyes cloudy, before slumping at allowing her to continue, body tense.

Clarke grabs her twine and thread and begins to stitch up her patient after a moment, and can hear Bellamy's unannounced entrance as he storms into the room, gun in hands.

"Clarke," he says, warning and wary laced together, and Clarke spares him a quick glance. "Later, Bellamy," she says, and his jaw tenses. The woman holding the grounders hand is silent, staring down at his face with a kind of desperation that Clarke hasn't seen on any grounder before, save perhaps Lincoln.

"Will he be okay?" She asks after a moment, and Clarke sends her a small smile. "He should be," she says, tying a knot in the sewn-up first cut, and starts on the longest and deepest incision next to it. The woman nods a few times, trying to reassure herself, and then looks up. "I am Willow," she says after a moment. "He is Yoraen. He is my fiancé," she adds tearfully, and Clarke sees Bellamy's eyebrows shoot up.

"Well, Willow," Clarke says slowly, continuing her stitches as Yoraen groans, "he'll be good as new soon enough." As she works on the last of Yoraen's wounds, she has to bring up the issue they have all been avoiding. "Willow," she says, "why are you here?"

Willow swallows, her brown eyes flicking to her fiancé. "Our village is three days away," she says, "We were out on a hunting party, tracking a bear that killed two of our village's children. When we heard the storm was coming, everyone headed back, but Yoraen and I thought we could track it down. We killed it, but not before it slashed him, and he's been getting lethargic, and I didn't know what to do." Her voice is strong, but Clarke can tell she's uncertain and nervous. Clarke would be too, in her shoes, and she listens silently as Willow continues.

"We had heard of Clarke of the Sky People, and we needed a healer, and..." Clarke finishes for her. "You were scared and desperate." She ties of the last stitch and dabs her patient's chest with a rag, cleaning the blood off of him. 

This whole situation has reminded Clarke of Anya and her tribe, of having to heal a little girl, of _failing_ , and she hopes that Willow's fiancé doesn't die on her.

Miller and Samuel, who have materialized in the room, watch the grounders suspiciously, and Bellamy grabs Clarke's arm and drags her outside.

 

"What the hell, Clarke?" He snaps, and she shushes him. 

"They need help," Clarek tries to reason. "And they dress and talk differently than Woods clan. If they're from another village nearby; healing two of their warriors is going to help us in the long shot." Bellamy flowers and argues, but Clarke sends Willow and her fiancée of two days later, both feeling much better.

Willow clasps Clarke's forearm and thanks her over and over again, saying that she will make sure that her brother, who is the leader of their village, hears of Clarke's compassion. Clarke smirks at Bellamy and he staunchly ignores her, still wary of the two grounders.

 

Life continues,  though, after they leave, and even with their preparations for winter, food is scarce. Everyone loses a fair bit of weight and their cheeks hollow slightly, leaving the remaining 100 even more wiry and looking even more battle-hardened than before, but they don't starve. (Clarke worries for Camp Jaha even more than usual because she knows they will be even less prepared.)

 

True to their word, Willow and Yoraen tell their village of the kind but fierce warriors in the forest and of the healer who helped them, and they return when winter is over, bearing furs and fruits. This is how their alliance forms, and the two groups share the land- if slightly uneasily- without conflict, and trade goods between them. (Willow proudly shows Clarke the matching tattoo she has with Yoraen, two intertwined circles on her wrist, and explains that when their family grows, they will add smaller circles to it. Clarke thinks it's cute, Bellamy thinks it's extreme.)

 

Come spring, the delinquents, (who are not really delinquents at all anymore,) send a team to the Arker's camp, and Bellamy, who argued for days with her until Clarke agreed to stay home, comes back with children. Seven orphans, thin and tired, but straining after him bravely. Clarke's jaw drops and Bellamy eases one of the littler ones, a boy called Quentin, into her arms, where he coughs and tosses feverishly. 

"They wanted to come, Clarke," Bellamy says in defence. "I couldn't let them stay there!" He lowers his voice. "They don't have parents, and their guardians are all rather busy staying alive." Clarke, who is tucking Quentin into a pile of furs, frowns but doesn't say anything. 

"You haven't seen it," he says miserably, "it's horrible, Clarke-" 

She whirls around dangerously, "And just _whose_ fault is it that I haven't seen it?" 

Bellamy backtracks quickly. "We can't bring them back," he pleads, and Clarke scoffs.

"Who said anything about bringing them back?" He breathes a sigh of relief. "But who's going to take care of these kids, Bellamy?" Clarke continues, weary, and she looks away, biting her lip. "Who will they live with? And what about the eleven other people you brought back? Parents, but where will they live?"  Bellamy grabs her wrist.

"Construction on more cabins will start soon," he promises. "And I couldn't just let those parents stay away from their kids any longer. It's not fair to anyone." Clarke softens, and eases her wrist out of his hand.

"I know that," she says quietly, looking around the med bay where she is keeping the kids for now, treating them for colds and varying degrees of fevers, "but Bellamy..." 

The kids stay in the med bay, in the end, until new cabins have been built. And the next time a group goes to Camp Jaha and comes back with a few younger couples and a couple other lone young arkers hoping for a better life and willing to work to get it, Clarke shoves them in with the kids and that's how the orphan kids who thought their lives were over when their parents died end up with an entire village as their family. 

 

(Clarke almost cries after little Quentin calls her mom, and buries her face in Bellamy's chest once Quin, as they all call him, runs off casually. It takes Bellmay by surprise, but her holds her anyways, heart tightening, because while it's cute- not creepy like they claim it is when the delinquents say it,- it's also heart wrenching for such a little boy to have already lost his parents, and Clarke is moving on but she will always see the faces of those kids from under the mountain.)

 

When Mary's son is finally born, Merrick, the other orphans watch Clarke worriedly until she calls them over and introduces them all to the little boy, oblivious to how they all relax when she doesn't forget them. Bellamy is tugged over by a girl called Reese, who is half-blind and loves Bellmay to pieces, and he he watches Clarke as she holds Merrick and the children crowd around her. He feels a soft, affectionate smile forming on his face, and ignores when Octavia grins and elbows Raven.

Raven bites her lip and crosses her fingers, and Octavia leans in expectantly, but Bellamy simply wraps Clarke in a hug and squeezes her shoulder, and she lets herself relax in his embrace.

 

The two girls keep waiting, but nothing remotely romantic forms between the two leaders of their village, and along with all the pair's friends, they think it's ridiculous how oblivious they are and try to set them up countless times. Clarke rolls her eyes and Bellamy huffs exasperatedly and Jasper sighs and hands Monty his bets.

* * *

 

When it finally happens, it's casual, Bellamy simply leans down as Clarke reaches up, and it's after a normal hunting party. Harper and Miller were the only witnesses, and both their jaws dropped, before Miller broke into an ear-splitting grin and Harper tore off towards Raven's tent, squealing and shouting, "They did it! They finally _did it_! They _kissed_!" Raven leaps out of her tent with Wick and Monty and Clarke and Bellamy laugh and shrug.

Raven, Jasper, and Octavia are so heartbroken that they missed the momentous occasion, Clarke wraps her arms around Bellamy's shoulders and he turns his head and they kiss quickly again that night in the mess hall.

 

 (Everyone falls completely silent, and Clarke and Bellamy casually pull apart, Clarke's head on his shoulder, smirking, and then the mess hall erupts into cheers and a couple "eww's" from the little kids and "aww's" from the older adults.)

* * *

**The End**


End file.
